Tintin Movie: Co-Directed from New Zealand, Via iChat

@Variety.

@firstshowing.com

Lord of the Rings director Peter Jackson is bringing cartoon icon Tintin to life in a movie, calling the shots via iChat.

Jackson was unable to trade his native New Zealand for the California set where flesh and blood actors are filming Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn.

So he told them what to do via iChat.

“Steven was on the set and Peter was in Wellington and he had lots of live links via iChat,” explained English actor Nick Frost, who plays one of the hapless Thomson detectives.

“I’ve never been directed before via iChat, which was an odd and not totally unpleasant way of doing business, just a bit strange.”

“Because of the time difference Peter would stay up all night and tinker and get in the sort of position that he was ready to shoot,” Frost said.

“Peter kind of re-wrote the scripts most evenings because he was in New Zealand, and so you would go in, in the morning with three or four pages of new dialogue and they were like, ‘Shooting this in 30 minutes, so get ready’.”

Also being told how to emote and where to stand via iChat are Daniel Craig, who plays a pirate, and Billy Elliot star Jaime Bell as Tintin.

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This is the first of a Tintin trilogy slated to hit theaters in 2011; Jackson will direct the next one solo and team up with Steven Spielberg for the third.

Via Stuff

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Nicole Martinelli is a San Francisco native who has lived in Milan and Florence, Italy. She's written for Wired.com, The New York Times and Newsweek. You can find her on Twitter , Facebook and Google+.

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  • CaryMG

    I like the TinTin comics but Jesus Christ — is this what we have to look forward to for the next THREE years?!?

    What happened to Spielberg’s “InterStellar” ?

  • http://www.kiwibloke.org GregR

    Jackson has too many projects in the works to travel to California to direct. I believe that why it is co-directed with Spielberg. The second one will be filmed in New Zealand. Besides when you live in New Zealand why would you want to work in California?. Let them come to you.

  • kenduque

    Just so you know, that photo is from Le Mystère de la toison d’or (The Golden Fleece’s Mystery), which was made in 1961.

  • kenduque
  • Jared

    Just to let you know that this is not what the new TinTin movies are going to look like. That screen shoot was taken from a 1960′s TV show. The new movie is actually a CG movie and not a live action movie.

  • http://www.zoomata.com Nicole Martinelli

    Jared — fixed, tx.